UC analysts examine Twilio's plans for Kurento's WebRTC media server, the relationship between service providers and cloud channel partners, and the Panopto-Ramp partnership.

Twilio Inc. said last week it would acquire Kurento, an open source WebRTC media server and set of API clients. In a blog, WebRTC consultant Tsahi Levent-Levi discussed the expected fallout of the acquisition.

Kurento will remain an open source project, but the development team behind the WebRTC media server will become Twilio employees. Naeva Tec, the Spain-based company that developed Kurento, will not be acquired, Levent-Levi wrote.

In the short term, Levent-Levi said Twilio could leverage Kurento for multiparty calling, video recording and PSTN connectivity for video calling. In the long term, Twilio could offer the WebRTC media server in the cloud, with a flexible API that pipelines media in real time.

"It will be interesting to see how Twilio implements it and what kind of offering and API they will put in place," he wrote.

Read more about what the acquisition means for the open source WebRTC media server space and what other acquisitions could be coming down the pipeline.

Cloud channel partners aid UCaaS providers

Cloud communication providers are turning to channel partners and resellers to achieve better scale and implementation success for their business customers. In a blog, Frost & Sullivan analyst Elka Popova examined how IP telephony and unified-communications-as-a-service providers are approaching relationships with cloud channel partners.

Popova wrote that successful cloud channel partners "employ a more consultative approach whereby they truly understand customer needs and propose options that best meet them." This approach differs from the traditional model of making a sales pitch based on features and price alone.

When looking for channel partnerships, cloud service providers take different approaches, Popova wrote. Some providers focus on education and marketing collateral with their channel partners, while others focus on finding the right mix of partners and capabilities.

Channel partner relationships will play a key role in better meeting and supporting organizations' cloud requirements, Popova said.

Read more about the channel partnership models that providers take and the challenges of these partnerships.

Panopto and Ramp team up for streaming network support

Streaming platform provider Panopto and video management provider Ramp have partnered to expand the networking options Panopto offers for enterprise deployments. Wainhouse Research analyst Steve Vonder Haar said the partnership will give Panopto customers more options to address network issues that can occur when deploying streaming services on enterprise networks.

"In some cases, organizations will need to implement several different types of solutions to address the specific needs of remote offices with varied streaming requirements and networking resources," Vonder Haar wrote. The partnership with Ramp gives Panopto a range of options to address customers' networking concerns.

Read more about how this partnership reflects a growing trend toward specialization among streaming technology vendors.

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